Asthma, allergies, polyps
Mar. 1st, 2022 08:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
akinoameSo to recap, back in October I had to have surgery to straighten my septum and remove a MASSIVE cluster of nasal polyps. Cultures came back negative, so Tregear the Polyp Cluster wasn't a Face-Fungus or Tumor or anything, thank goodness.
December, I started having shitty allergies again, to the point where my ears were clogging constantly. Primary care said it looked like a eustachean tube dysfunction, caused by my allergies swelling up my ears. Needed to follow up with the ENT, but I had to put that on hold when someone in the household had COVID and wasn't cleared until January when my new insurance started.
When the new insurance started, it looked like it didn't cover any ENTs in the area, but fortunately mine looked into it and found that yeah they do, despite what the insurance company was saying. So that got squared away.
My 3-month follow-up after the surgery turned up a new nasal polyp and a LOT of inflammation in my sinuses, though no infection (lots of thick green gunk though, along with lots of crusts). So they switched me from Flonase to Xhance, which is the same medication but you have to blow into it, so it goes all the way up into your sinuses. It's expensive as hell because it's just a brand new delivery method, and my insurance didn't cover it, but the ENT put me in touch with a specialty pharmacy out of state that's a preferred partner of the pharmaceutical company, so that gave me a massive discount. Started that medication fairly recently, and it seems to be working, and I'm having better drainage. Everything smells and tastes like parmesan cheese and dirty feet right now, but that's definitely because of the post-nasal drip being really gunky and disgusting, though it's thinning out and becoming clearer.
So now the last couple of weeks, I've had to take my rescue inhaler every day, and with pollen counts being what they are, I'm really inflamed and I can't do the exercise I want to (I'm planning a hike with my sister next month, and I want to keep up my strength). So the allergist is going to figure out what kind of medication to put me on, since Allegra seems to be helping with getting the nasal allergies settled back down, and the Xhance is getting my sinuses back under control, and now it's just this. So I have a pulmonary test on Monday morning, and I'm seeing my primary care on Friday, so I'll let him know all of these updates. The allergist also said I'm a good candidate for Dupixent, even though it's expensive and my insurance company will start whining, but I have already had a shit-ton of polyps surgically removed, and we need to take care of the root cause. But first we're going to see what happens with the Xhance and my ENT follow-up in May.
...So, yeah. It's weird having a lot of shit going on with me but actually having a plan for it now.
December, I started having shitty allergies again, to the point where my ears were clogging constantly. Primary care said it looked like a eustachean tube dysfunction, caused by my allergies swelling up my ears. Needed to follow up with the ENT, but I had to put that on hold when someone in the household had COVID and wasn't cleared until January when my new insurance started.
When the new insurance started, it looked like it didn't cover any ENTs in the area, but fortunately mine looked into it and found that yeah they do, despite what the insurance company was saying. So that got squared away.
My 3-month follow-up after the surgery turned up a new nasal polyp and a LOT of inflammation in my sinuses, though no infection (lots of thick green gunk though, along with lots of crusts). So they switched me from Flonase to Xhance, which is the same medication but you have to blow into it, so it goes all the way up into your sinuses. It's expensive as hell because it's just a brand new delivery method, and my insurance didn't cover it, but the ENT put me in touch with a specialty pharmacy out of state that's a preferred partner of the pharmaceutical company, so that gave me a massive discount. Started that medication fairly recently, and it seems to be working, and I'm having better drainage. Everything smells and tastes like parmesan cheese and dirty feet right now, but that's definitely because of the post-nasal drip being really gunky and disgusting, though it's thinning out and becoming clearer.
So now the last couple of weeks, I've had to take my rescue inhaler every day, and with pollen counts being what they are, I'm really inflamed and I can't do the exercise I want to (I'm planning a hike with my sister next month, and I want to keep up my strength). So the allergist is going to figure out what kind of medication to put me on, since Allegra seems to be helping with getting the nasal allergies settled back down, and the Xhance is getting my sinuses back under control, and now it's just this. So I have a pulmonary test on Monday morning, and I'm seeing my primary care on Friday, so I'll let him know all of these updates. The allergist also said I'm a good candidate for Dupixent, even though it's expensive and my insurance company will start whining, but I have already had a shit-ton of polyps surgically removed, and we need to take care of the root cause. But first we're going to see what happens with the Xhance and my ENT follow-up in May.
...So, yeah. It's weird having a lot of shit going on with me but actually having a plan for it now.